Harry Potter and the Blackland's Horcrux
by Tricky Rabbit
Summary: The seventh book composed using Popular Potter Theories floating around on the web, as well as a few of my own ideas. Mystery, drama, action and adventure will ensue.


**Unexpected Post **

Harry's hands strained at the chipped white paint of the windowpane, willing the dry wood to give an inch so that he might let the impatiently waiting snowy owl into his bedroom. Hedwig sat like a wintry sentinel on the sill behind the glass, looking at him with cool amber eyes that belied the heat of the night.

As he worked his tongue darted out to swipe away a renegade bead of sweat that had fallen from his forehead and landed on his upper-lip. His right hand snaked up to bush back his bangs in a subconscious gesture, shifting the fringe of dark hair that had served to encumber his vision out of the way. The deft action revealed the jagged outline of the scar that marked his brow. It had been prickling with a dull ache for weeks now, but the pain was such a familiarity that the boy who bore it hardly noticed it anymore.

But the days had long since passed when Harry could be properly called a _boy_. This was a fact he was becoming more and more accustomed to. And though his coming of age would take place in mere minutes, he knew that it had been a long while since he had considered himself (and been considered as) a child. He had lived through many terrible things and he had seen many terrible sights that had happily erased the possibility of remaining in blissful – and sometimes not-so-blissful – childhood.

The most recent of the 'terrible things' had been the death of the man he had considered invincible. And before that it had been the death of the man who had been like both a father and a brother to him.

Harry sighed and attempted to push the vile thoughts from his mind. But still he could not shake the feeling that his coming of age meant something; something more _tangible _than simply aging a year. He was reminded strongly of the time he had spent with Ron Weasley – his best friend – in Divination class, cooking up false estimations of his own death. Ominous premonitions did not seem quite so funny now.

_Maybe Dumbledore--- _Harry cut himself off in mid-thought, turning away from his bedroom window as jolts of remorse and guilt spidered their way up the bottom of his stomach. He would not let himself think on _that_. He had already thought on it plenty during the long and pensive week he had spent shut up in his bedroom at the Dursley's. He had made a promise to _him_. He had promised to go back once more to his childhood home, and now that that promise was fulfilled _he _became no more than a ghost, and no more corporeal than the painting that bore his image in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts.

Harry's knuckles had turned white with his efforts at the windowpane, and it felt as though his fingernails were about to peel back like the shell of a boiled egg. _If only – _jerk! – _it were _– jolt! – _twenty or so minutes later! _he thought as he resorted to brute force in an attempt to shimmy the window up. _Then I'd be legal. I could just use magic to open this stupid window…_

But at that moment, as if guessing that Harry had been contemplating forcing her to wait, Hedwig leaned forward and tapped the thin glass window with her beak. As she leaned towards him her snowy back dipped into the moon's light, and Harry was given a view of a tiny charred piece of parchment that rested atop the soft down of her back.

Harry froze. As Hedwig shifted on the sill, her sharp beak still tapping away at the window pane, the moonlight stole over the parchment, illuminating silvery letters that were scrawled in a nearly illegible hand on the parchment's bottom corner.

The letters were _R. A. B._

Harry tore at the windowpane now, his knuckles aching as he threw all of his strength into opening the stubborn window in a last ditch effort. The window finally slid up an inch and then two, then five, all the while accompanied by a horrible screeching noise like an un-oiled gate. Soon the window was open all the way, giving Harry enough room to throw his upper body out onto the sill in an attempt to grab Hedwig. Hedwig had thrown Harry an indignant look before hopping out of the way to the far edge of the sill.

Harry retracted with an exasperated sigh. "Please, Hedwig? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lunge at you like that. Please, come here…"

Apology accepted, Hedwig flew in through the window in a rush of flapping feathers. She perched on the edge of Harry's bed and regarded him with her wizened eyes, as if aware of the possible import of the note she carried.

Harry approached her with trembling hands, taking the time it took for him to cross the room to calm his racing heart. _Think, _he chastised himself. _It could be a trap. It could be a fake. What would Sirius do?_

He wondered why his deceased Godfather's name had come to him in this situation. He knew exactly what Sirius Black would have done. He would have ripped the note from Hedwig's back and read it with a flourish. Harry sat on the bed beside the snowy owl, his hands itching to do just that.

But then another voice piped up in his head. _What if it's a trap? _the voice asked. That particular voice had always served as a kind of conscience living in the back of his skull. It had only been in recent years, when the stakes had become too high to simply _ignore _the all-important-voice, that he had really started listening to it. _You can't just _read _it, Harry, _the voice said again._ It could be dangerous… _Harry wondered vaguely how Hermione Granger, his other best friend, managed to always listen to the reasonable voice that piped up from the back of her head.

He reached towards the blackened slip of parchment, his hands hovering inches above Hedwig's folded wings. He withdrew his fingers, only to have them fly back towards the charred slip of paper a moment later. Beating back his nay-saying conscience, Harry shut his eyes tightly and made a final lunge for the parchment, his fingers closing around its charred corner. He tugged it towards him with a heaving jerk, as if he was afraid that, if given the chance to bolt, the parchment would leap from Hedwig's back and soar out the window.

It turned out that his fears were not completely unfounded. The parchment did not come loose from Hedwig's feathers, where it appeared to be magically fixed, as he first assumed it would. Instead of obtaining the blackened note, Harry only succeeded in pulling the soft down on Hedwig's back so hard that the snowy owl was dragged backward a few inches across the bedspread.

With a furious screech Hedwig took to the air, flying in a low arc to the open window with such speed that she appeared to be nothing more than a white blur. Harry followed her to the windowsill in three running strides. He stuck his top half out through the open window – nearly overbalancing on the thin sill as he did – in an effort to spot his fleeing owl, but he could only make out the darkened street of Privet Drive below through the soft glow of the streetlamps.

"Bugger…" Harry muttered, biting his tongue to silence the furious yell that threatened to escape his mouth. Harry gave the street one last quick look, but upon discovering nothing he made his way back to his bed. He would have to wait until Hedwig cooled off before he could make another try at the tiny slip of parchment. _At least you don't have to worry about her losing it, _a sarcastic voice quipped in his mind. He slumped down on the lumpy mattress, folding his hands behind his head as he did so. He stared up at the plain light fixture that protruded from the plain white ceiling. At that moment he missed the rag-tag, mismatched comfort of the Burrow with a maddening ache.

_R. A. B._, he thought. _What I wouldn't give to read that note! _ _What I wouldn't give for five minutes alone with R. A. B, if he's still alive. What I wouldn't give to talk with _anyone _who's not terrified of magic and of me for just a little while…_

The events of the past school year still weighed heavily upon Harry's mind. Perhaps the most difficult thing of all was having no one to speak of them with. He had gone to the Weasley's for the first few weeks of the summer, but everyone had treated him as though he were a walking spectre. Unable to stand the unspoken words and grief-filled glances any longer, he had come to the bland Dursley-populated Privet Drive an entire week earlier than he was supposed to. It had been boring and it had been lonely, and Vernon and Petunia Dursley had been less than happy to receive him, but at least he was spared the endless stream of sympathy he was faced with in the wizarding world.

No one but Ron and Hermione knew about Harry's promise to find the remaining Horcruxes, but at the same time _everyone _knew. They might not have known, in exact terms, what he planned to do – in truth, not even Harry knew – but everyone knew _something. _Everyone from Mrs. Weasley to Remus Lupin could feel that Harry was planning something.

Not that it really mattered what everyone _knew _or _didn't know_. This was Harry's quest and Harry's promise, just as it was Harry's promise to return one last time to the Dursley's house, and he intended to see it through to the end alone. He had a feeling that he would have to face many of the trials that awaited him in the very near future by himself.

He hoped he had not waited too long; he hoped he had not wasted the beginning of the summer. But every time he turned to leave the Burrow and start out on his quest something had stopped him. Something within him had whispered '_wait_'. And then, as the days had turned to weeks, and Harry had begun to become restless, that same something had whispered '_wait until you come of age_'. And even though Harry had been filled with the need to wander, he had listened to the whisper. But now that the time had come he intended to start out right away; as soon as the clock struck twelve, to be exact.

_Now if only I had a decent place to start. _Silvery lettering on black parchment drifted through his mind._ The charred parchment…I have to get that parchment from Hedwig! It's some kind of a clue, I can feel it--- _

The long-ago repaired alarm clock that sat on Harry's modest bedside table croaked to life with a horrible bleating beep, jolting all thoughts of _R. A. B. _from his mind. He scrambled across the bed to it, slamming his hand down on the snooze button before it could wake the whole house. Its little green-lit digital panel read 12:00 a.m., and Harry felt a twinge of sadness.

_Happy birthday to me… _the jesting song within his head seemed to echo a different time, a happier time.

With a last look around his bedroom, Harry scooped up a few miscellaneous items that still lay upon his floor and shoved them in the open chest at the foot of his bed. Hedwig's cage still rested in the corner of the room by the window; he had no intention of taking it with him. He had left it unclean, and he rather hoped that the heat would start to make it really smell in a day or two.

With some effort (though not as much as he had exerted a few years ago) Harry dragged his hulking chest into the hall and shut his bedroom door. Then, promise to _him _fulfilled, Harry set foot on the top stair, beginning on a journey that would lead him from the Dursley house, never to return again.


End file.
